“There are probably 20 Republican senators in the U.S. Senate who are on the fence, who are wobbling on this issue and not sure of how to vote,” Cruz added.

***

It was just a few months ago that Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio brought the Conservative Political Action Conference crowd to its feet with back-to-back speeches that left many in the audience waxing poetic about the two freshman firebrands and their prospects in 2016.

But while Paul earned similar praise Wednesday from activists perched on the Capitol lawn for a rally against illegal immigration and the IRS, the very mention of Rubio’s name drew groans and even boos. The same Tea Party types that helped catapult Rubio into the national spotlight have now turned on him as he continues to maneuver the Senate toward a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform package…

“I still like him,” William Agliano adds. “But he’s making it tough.”

***

A lot of conservatives are upset with Marco Rubio. I can understand that. I do believe that he had the best of intentions when he started working on this issue. But I also told him during interviews early on that I do not trust Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin. Democrats have a history of not being trustworthy. My prediction seems to have become a reality. Democrats are basically using this as a political issue, not for the sake of solving an important problem but to boost future election chances by making this a wedge issue for 2014. The way that this is all shaping up, Democrats will be able to go out there and say that Republicans don’t like Hispanics, just like they squawk that Republicans want dirty air and water, they want to push granny off the cliff and they want poor and disabled children to fend for themselves. This is typical liberal politics at play.

“The fact is, Senator Rubio is bouncing around trying to find a path out,” a Republican staffer told the Washington Examiner. “The bill is indefensible — and he has all but admitted it by saying ‘it must be improved.’ So he saddled up with Cornyn to try to get cover — but now that doesn’t seem to be working either. Now there are more secret back room-deals being attempted — while Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer stiff-arm Senator Grassley and other Republicans who are trying to modify the bill on the floor. The American people are just waking up to the reality of another 1000 page amnesty bill — and there is a long way to go in this debate.”…

”How long have they been working on this bill?” another Republican Senate aide said. “And they are going to surprise everyone with a brand new bill just DAYS before senators vote on it, before anyone can read it, score it, evaluate it?”

***

Laura Ingraham asked Representative Paul Ryan on her radio show today why he supports immigration reform that could harm middle-class Americans. She asked him, “The CBO report says that [the Gang of Eight] approach, which would allow in all these people, would drive wages down. How can Paul Ryan, the man behind the growth agenda, say that driving American wages down is a good thing over the next twelve years, for the middle class who is struggling in Wisconsin and beyond?”

Citing a data point from the CBO’s recently released score of the Senate bill, Ingraham argued that, while the Senate proposal may be supported by the Chamber of Commerce and big businesses, it would harm wages for working-class Americans. “If the amnesty happens, those people are going to be able to compete across every job line, across every employment sector,” she said. ”How does flooding the marketplace with more laborers to compete across every workplace environment – how is that good for the American middle class?”

The bill has not primarily been sold as a deficit-reduction measure or a way to increase GNP per capita by 0.2 percent in 20 years’ time. It has been sold as a way–the only practical way–of getting illegal immigration under control. That’s what supporters are getting at when they say that the status quo is unacceptable, that it’s a de facto amnesty, and that nothing could be worse than not passing a bill. Now the CBO tells us that under the bill we will have only 25 percent less illegal immigration than it expects under current law…

It is certainly open to supporters of the bill to dispute the CBO’s pessimistic projection about future illegal immigration. But if they do that, they will have to also throw out the deficit and GNP numbers they’ve been touting, since as I understand it those projections are based on the number of people that are expected to be here.

***

Chuck Schumer said recently that passage of the legislation will ensure that “Illegal immigration will be a thing of the past.” Rubio and Graham have made the same claim, repeatedly. But the CBO projects 4.8 million new illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children will be living in the country by 2023 if the bill becomes law, compared to 6.4 million without it. (This is the 25% reduction Andrew Stiles noted below.) The report doesn’t break out the number of U.S.-born children included in that 4.8 million number, but let’s say, for round-number purposes, there would be 4 million new illegal aliens a decade from now. The report also assumes that only 8 million of the current illegals will receive amnesty, leaving 3.5 million still here illegally (if there are about 11.5 million illegals now, as is likely). Assuming further that half a million of them would die or go home over the next decade, that would seem to imply, based on CBO’s own figures, that there would be 7 million illegal aliens living here 10 years after the bill’s passage. Does that sound like illegal immigration will have become “a thing of the past”?…

And if the amnesty-pushers claim the CBO is wrong about its projections of continued mass illegal immigration, then what else is it wrong about?

“This gang of 8 bill is a disaster”, Cruz began. “We’re hearing the exact same empty promises as 1986. It grants legalization now, and promises that sometime in the future, trust us *wink wink* we’ll secure the border. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame in me.”